Alpine SPR-57LS Speakers

Alpine SPR-57LS Speakers 

DESCRIPTION

  • Aluminum Woofer Custom Frame
  • 1" Soft Dome Tweeter
  • Linear Drive Magnet Motor Structure
  • Frequency Response: 35Hz – 30kHz

USER REVIEWS

Showing 1-3 of 3  
[Jun 12, 2007]
Alex
Model Reviewed: SPR-57LS

Strength:

None

Weakness:

Woofers and crossover are awful.

Absolutely terrible sounding speakers. I agree with the other two reviews. The woofers are awful and have very little bass (they weigh a ton and should really kick). Guitars always sound muffled and voices create a ringing sound that will cause you headaches. I also have the tweeters set to the lowest volume setting on the crossover yet my mid-highs are unbearable (but I believe this is an effect from the woofer) I really don't know why these speakers are rated so well on other sites, but my advice is to stay away.

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood 5x7 and they were cheap, but sounded extraordinary. I'm going back.

OVERALL
RATING
1
VALUE
RATING
1
[Jan 04, 2006]
agrazela
Model Reviewed: SPR-57LS

Strength:

Strong, stiff woofer frames. Smooth, warm tweeters. Many good tweeter mounting options. Tweeters have a very broad listenable range and can handle a good bit of power, if you want to actively crossover instead.

Weakness:

Poor low-range (<125Hz) reproduction. Poor reproduction at lower volumes. Woofer dropout at 500 Hz. Severe woofer cone breakup at higher volumes. Passive crossover frequency is too high.

I got these for front stage as an upgrade to Alpine SPS-570A's, when I got an Alpine MRV-F303 amplifier (4x50 RMS WPC). The system is run by an Alpine CDA-9813 head unit. I retained my SPS-170A's for "rear fill," running at -12dB attenuation. The SPR woofers have beefy cast aluminum frames and large magnets--in fact, I had to modify the stock woofer mounts in order to fit the mid-ranges into the stock 5x7 door locations. The crossovers are of manageable size, and the tweeters have some nice mounting options, including recessed swivel mount, surface swivel mount, or swivel mounting in unique bullet-shaped "pods." I mounted the tweeters in the A-pillars using the pods. (Note: my car is small and has NO ROOM for custom kick-panels...I did the best I could for mounting locations, ensuring that paired woofer/tweeter locations were as equidistant from the driver's ears as possible.) The SPR speakers can handle more power than the SPS could...but only up to a point. The SPR 57LS woofers sound somewhat muffled, indistinct and even "tinny" at low volume, with especially poor bass/midbass reproduction. They come on a bit better at one-third to two-thirds volume, although they have the same flabbiness below 125 Hz and dropout at about 500 Hz that the SPS 570A coaxials had. Above two-thirds volume, the woofers breakup badly to the point that they are headache inducingly bad to listen to. At these volumes, in the high male / mid-to-low female voice frequencies, the woofers occasionally (and very annoyingly) will put out a sharp "click" sound. And no, we are NOT talking about distortion due to either amp gains being set too high or to the HU pre-amp being over-driven...the problem is definitely in the woofers. The silk dome tweeters are a different story altogether. They are VERY smooth and warm, and have excellent reproduction between the crossover point (estimated to be 5kHz to 6kHz) and about 16kHz. Above this they drop off sharply, to the tune of about -12 to -15dB versus a 95dB white noise baseline...but it is more noticeable to my SPL meter than it is to my ears. Alpine did these tweeters right. Finally, the passive crossovers have a 6dB/octave low pass for the woofer and a 12dB/octave high pass for the tweeter, including a choice of 0, -3 or -6 dB attenuation of the tweeter via jumpered resistors. I found two major problems with this implementation: 1) There is significant reinforcement in the frequency range of about 5kHz to 8kHz (to the tune of about plus 6-9 dB versus a white noise baseline of 95 dB...quite noticeable); this makes these speakers sound somewhat harsh whenever reproducing frequencies in this range. 2) The tweeters are apparently FAR more sensitive than are the woofers, as their average SPL--not counting the reinforcement noted above--was a good 6 to 12 dB higher than the woofers at a 95dB white noise baseline level. These problems were less pronounced with greater attenuation (thus the ranges given above), but could not be eliminated. Unfortunately, there is no "fixing" the problems with these woofers. I tried running the woofers and tweeters separately off the amp's four channels, using the 3-way crossover functions built into the CDA-9813 head unit and manipulating the amp gains...while this was effective in overcoming the sensitivity differences and eliminating the reinforcement between the tweeter and woofer, nothing could overcome the poor response of the woofer at lower volumes or the severe woofer cone breakup at higher volumes. I did find that the tweeters had excellent reproduction all the way down to about 3kHz, and the woofers sounded better when cutoff around there, too; I think the passive crossovers should have been set significantly lower. I am inclined to believe that the problems in the woofers in these SPR-57LS speakers (and also in the SPS-570A's I had previously) are due to the oval 5x7 shape. I have read in many places that round cones are the ONLY way to go; for SPL due to their inherently better stiffness, and for SQ due to their perfect symmetry. As I have not noticed the problems I have pointed out above in the woofers of the SPS-170A's I have, I suspect there must be truth in this. My next step is to replace the SPR-57LS woofers with SPR-17LS woofers, if I can find a way to squeeze them in. If I don't like that, I am switching away from Alpine speakers (I can't afford X-types). IMO, there is no good application for SPR-57LS speakers--because of the woofers. They cannot handle appreciable power without breaking up, and the tweeters are too sensitive vs the woofers--or at least vs what power the woofers CAN handle. Although the passive crossovers allow too much reinforcement around the crossover frequency--I'll bet this is a problem for ANY moderately-priced component speakers--this can be overcome using active crossover or parametric EQ. At full retail ($170-$180), these are a poor product at a slightly high price

Similar Products Used:

SPS-570A

OVERALL
RATING
2
VALUE
RATING
2
[Nov 21, 2005]
bigtextyler
Model Reviewed: Alpine SPR-57LS

Strength:

tweeter was the only thing that sounded right

Weakness:

power handling abilities and clarity of sound.

I ordered this component set (pair alpine 2 ways 5x7, and two tweeters) lasted me about three weeks before I started hearing cracking in one of the 5x7's. I don't think these can handle very much power at all. Only was hitting them with 60 watts each which they are rated at 60 RMS. I would not reccomend these speakers to anyone who wants quality sound out 5x7 speakers.

OVERALL
RATING
1
VALUE
RATING
1
Showing 1-3 of 3  

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